Autism Insurance Provider Legislation Meeting  

On Friday, December 5th, Autism Speaks in cooperation with the Kansas Center For Autism Research and Training at the University of Kansas, will bring together all interested parties to join a facilitated process to develop a unified proposal for adoption.  Our goal is to ensure as many children and families have access to and are able to receive quality ABA Autism services throughout the state of Kansas, including rural areas of our state.

When:  Friday, December 5th, 2014, 1:00pm – 4:30pm

Where:  KU Edwards Campus, BEST Conference Center  12600 Quivira Rd, Overland Park, KS 66213- Large Building back part of Campus.

Expected outcome:  Attaining agreement on provider qualifications and standards 

If you plan to attend, and you have not already done so, please fill out this short survey:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Autism_implementation

 Our facilitator for this event is Laura Howard, J.D., Director of University of Kansas Public Management Center.
A message from Laura about the event: 

I am looking forwarding to facilitating the December 5 meeting.  In advance of the meeting, I wanted to reiterate the goals for the day and describe how the afternoon will be organized.  Our primary goal for the day is to develop a set of recommendations agreed on by the provider community and advocates that represents the collective group’s position on licensing and qualifications for service providers.  Secondary goals include clarification of the law itself, as well as ensuring that the recommendations that are developed ensure the maximum number of children can receive services from qualified providers.  

At the meeting itself, we’ll start with an overview of the law to address misconceptions and bring everyone to a common understanding of the provisions that were passed in HB 2744.  After that, we’ll surface concerns that we can refer back to during the course of the meeting to ensure that the most common concerns are addressed in the afternoon’s work.  We will review the Survey Monkey results to share the group’s perceptions, and to identify where there might be strong areas of consensus or disagreement.  We will spend the bulk of our time in small group discussions around licensure considerations  and provider qualifications for service delivery and third party reimbursement.  Based on the small group discussions we will use a process to come to some consensus on recommendations and next steps.  I would ask two things of those planning to attend the meeting – first, a commitment to work toward consensus; and second, a commitment to support the group’s work and participate going forward in educating other stakeholders, advocacy or other efforts.    

Finally, I know I will be keeping in mind who this is all about --  the individuals receiving services and the many families who seek accessible and quality services for their loved one.   

Laura Howard, Director

Public Management Center

University of Kansas